First law of constitution

Under the traditional division of the Old Charges in Craft Constitutions, the first head of duty or law is titled "Concerning God and religion" 1.

In James Anderson’s 1723 Constitutions of the Craft, this First Charge obliges a Mason to observe the moral law and states that if he rightly understands the Craft, he will never be a "stupid Atheist" nor an "irreligious libertine" 1. Whereas older operative charges required compliance with the Christian usages of the country where Masons worked, Anderson's 1723 text established that Masons are only obliged to adhere to "that religion in which all men agree", leaving each brother to his own particular opinions and requiring them simply to be good men and true 12.

Anderson revised this language in 1738 to explicitly mention "whatever Names, Religions, or Persuasions" members might hold, a phrasing closely adopted by Laurence Dermott in Ahiman Rezon for the Antients Grand Lodge 12. Following the 1813 union of the Antients and Moderns in English Craft Masonry, the revised 1815 Constitutions updated the First Charge to declare that a man is not excluded from the Order whatever his religion or mode of worship, provided he believes in the "glorious architect of heaven and earth" and practices the duties of morality 2.